Newly Minted
by Tiamat's Child
Summary: First Aid is two days old, and there’s a lot he still has to figure out. G1


**Title:** Newly Minted

**Author:** Tiamat's Child

**Fandom:** Transformers G1

**Characters:** First Aid, Ironhide, ensemble

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** First Aid is two days old, and there's a lot he still has to figure out.

**A/N:** Nothing else I'm working on wanted to cooperate with me, so I decided to see if going back to this would help. It did. Thank you for the handholding, Rainbowjehan! (Also, Decepticons are really hard to write. I'm trying! I re-wrote that section ten times.)

**Newly Minted**

First Aid had been alive and awake for two days, ten hours, and twenty-six minutes. There was a lot he didn't know – he was still shaky on a lot of names, he was still a bit confused by all the road signs, and a lot of the radio chatter that had been going on until five minutes and ten seconds ago (did that mean they were being jammed?) had gone quite over his head – but he knew the internal workings he was currently up to his elbows in intensely, completely. He still didn't really _know_ Ironhide, but he knew _everything_ about how Ironhide worked.

Right deep down to his laser core, that was how he knew. It went beyond memory, into something that was just about who he was. He knew how to help, and he knew just how badly hurt Ironhide was. Which was why Ironhide was currently offline.

"I can turn off the pain sensors in your leg and you can promise to stay still," First Aid had explained, in the steady, even voice that seemed like the right way to talk – the way _he_ talked, although he wasn't quite sure about a lot of things about himself yet, "Or I can shut you down temporarily. The second's safest, because you're losing energon."

"I don't need the sensors off, lad," Ironhide had said, in a warm, kind drawl that First Aid would have been inclined to believe just because of the tone, if it hadn't been for the fact that Ironhide was talking nonsense, "I can hold still for you."

First Aid blinked at him, said, "All right," and calmly shut him down. Clearly, Ironhide's cpu needed to be looked at too, but he couldn't do that right now, so it was better to just avoid the discussion and skip straight ahead to the end result of attempting to remain online with pain sensors on during surgery – even minor field surgery.

Which was why, now, First Aid was on his knees in a small puddle of quiet. It wasn't silent behind the rock outcropping he'd hauled Ironhide to before setting to work, what with the general cracks and shouts and sizzles of battle just beyond the low jut of stone, but as far as First Aid was concerned, it was quiet, because the only sounds that he needed to pay attention to were right in front of him.

Ironhide was a bit of a mess. Now that First Aid was actually inside the damaged leg he figured it was a good thing he'd gone the shutting him down route, because the energon leak was worse than he'd thought, and with it still leaking Ironhide's systems would have shut down in self defense in a few more minutes, anyway, which would have been considerably more traumatic for his CPU than First Aid shutting things down the way they were meant to go down. It was a shame, First Aid thought as he worked to clean up the site of the leak and get it sealed, that there was only so much redundancy you could build into a system.

Of course, he added to himself, humans have considerably less redundancy, and you'd have a recovery of years on your hands if you were working on a human patient with these kinds of wounds, so consider yourself one very lucky doctor and get him on his feet again.

Something above him went _click_.

"What _have_ we here?" a voice to go with the click said. It was not a nice voice, for all it was, at the moment, warm with self-satisfaction.

First Aid froze for an instant, as if not moving was going to help him at all. Annoyed at himself, he went back to working. He had the wound site clean enough to take the seal, he just had to get it on. That was more important than whether or not keeping on working would annoy the Decepticon who'd found him.

It took a bit of a processor split, but he managed to say, "A doctor and a patient."

"I can see that," the Decepticon said, "Bright shiny doctor – Just off the line, I'll bet your sigil's still damp – and Prime's rusty right hand."

First Aid got the impression he was supposed to find the combination deliciously ironic, which he supposed it might be, if sadism had been rotting the sections of your programming devoted to humor for millions of years. "That's right," he said, "I was commissioned the day before yesterday. Thank you for the interest."

The Decepticon laughed. "Aren't you even going to look up? Don't you want to know who's going to shoot you?"

First Aid sighed softly as the seal sucked itself onto the leak. There. That was the most vital thing. Ironhide might not be out of danger, but his current wounds weren't going to kill him anymore. "No, not urgently. Besides, I need to see to do this."

There was a brief, baffled pause, during which First Aid felt out the shape of the damaged knee joint and settled his hand around it to yank it back into place. Not the most elegant solution, and it would ache until it could be reshaped properly, but it would do.

"You're getting boring," the Decepticon said. He sounded annoyed now – posturing must not be much fun when the person you were posturing at just kept working.

"I'm sorry," First Aid said, and tugged hard at the joint, "I'm very busy."

"Fine." There was a clicky click sort of sound, and then the hum of machinery, a hum that very quickly picked up frequency into a rather worrying sort of whine. First Aid hastily removed his fingers from the more delicate wires in Ironhide's leg – no sense in his involuntary reaction to being shot hurting Ironhide more – and flung himself forward, hoping his body would shield his patient at least a little.

There was a crash, a metallic crunching noise, a yelp, and a sizzle as the shot missed First Aid by several feet.

Then the Decepticon fell on him.

"Ow!" First Aid said, as various sharp edges grated against his back and his stomach, and his knee twisted painfully against the ground under the sudden added weight.

"And take that _too_!" a considerably more familiar voice said, in prelude to a sharp clang that sounded like someone hitting an important computer relay point with a braced elbow. "Hey, First Aid! You okay? How's Ironhide?"

"Erk," said First Aid.

"…Oh. Right. Sorry. One, two, three!"

First Aid wriggled to test himself for damage as Bumblebee, going the kind of quiet that, from Bumblebee, meant he was concentrating very hard, rolled the Decepticon's unconscious form off to the side. "Thank you for the help, Bumblebee," he said, now that he could speak.

"You're welcome," Bumblebee said cheerfully, and a bright yellow flash dropped into First Aid's peripheral vision just as First Aid turned his attention back to Ironhide. "That could have got kind of nasty. Is Ironhide really bad off?"

"Not anymore," First Aid told him, "I need to seal some connections off until I can do a proper job on his leg. My toolkit is in front of you. Can you give me the – " he started to identify his tool by name, but stopped. Bumblebee was very clever, but he wasn't a medic, nor even a tech. "It's got red rubber handles."

"Got it," Bumblebee said, and passed it over.

"Thank you," First Aid said, and settled back to work. Temporarily sealing up loose wires wasn't hard, but it was rather fiddly. It took time.

He didn't look up at the screech of a two wheeled vehicle making a tight turn around the rock. First Aid already knew that sound, almost as if it was one he made himself.

"Hey, Bumblebee," Groove said, kind and unhurried and utterly familiar. First Aid felt warmer and safer just hearing him, knowing they were close together now, not separated by the battlefield. "How's Ironhide, First Aid? I'm carrying reports."

"Stable," First Aid told him, "I'll have him conscious – I mean, I'll have him online again in a minute."

"Nobody can get to Soundwave, then?" Bumblebee asked.

"Not yet – we're working on it. Jazz says you should stay where you are – covering First Aid is good, he gets a little wrapped up."

First Aid finished off the last connection and returned to his toolbox. Just a quick check and Ironhide would probably be clear to come back online, despite the damage to his external structure and the cpu glitch. "I can hear you, Groove."

"Sorry. I'll gossip softer," Groove answered back, and all the comforting humor in his voice made First Aid almost want to stop what he was doing and touch Groove's wrist, just to be sure, just to be close. He didn't like the five of them being scattered about like this. It hadn't bothered him before, but it bothered him now. They were supposed to be together.

He didn't, of course. He had a patient. Patients were more important than the correct order of his personal universe and where his teammates were.

The Decepticon groaned. There was another clanking sound with a bit of a crunch in it. Different relay point, hit harder, probably with the butt of a pistol this time. "Can't you people just stay down?" Bumblebee asked, a little bit of strain in his cheerful voice.

"I think he'll be staying down now," Groove said. "First Aid, do you need a hand?"

First Aid set his pressure gauge back down in his box. A good, strong reading, that was good – even if Ironhide's energon levels were lower than he'd like, with the leak blocked and the pain shut down they wouldn't force his processor down again. They wouldn't do anything worse than make him sluggish. Which might not be a bad thing, considering that glitch.

"No, thank you, Groove. I've done what I can for the moment. Here," and his hands ran quick as could be through the sequence to reboot.

It was strange. First Aid realized as he did it that here was something he knew that almost no one else did. Certainly Groove didn't, or Bumblebee. It was something special, different, a part of the trust, like making sure his hands didn't hurt Ironhide. He could wake people up or shut them down.

Not everybody could do that, he thought for the first time, and it made him feel quiet inside, like maybe he needed to think about that, but there wasn't really time.

"Oof," Ironhide said, "You didn't have to do that, doc."

"I'm sorry, but yes, I did," First Aid told him, "Now, be careful, that's just temporary."

"How are you feeling, Ironhide?" Bumblebee asked, leaning forward around First Aid, his elbow brushing First Aid's side.

"Much better now, Bumblebee," Ironhide said, and smiled at them. "Our brand new doctor here knows his stuff!"

"I was programmed by the best," First Aid said. "Groove, I think I'd better come back with – "

There was a loud crack. First Aid threw himself over Ironhide's open leg again. He could feel Bumblebee and Groove flatten themselves on either side of him as he did so. It was only instinct, but the next moment there was a noise that sounded like a strange mix between a building breaking apart under systemic stress and a whole lot of shattering crystal. A wave of heat came with it. Behind the rock shelter the air was suddenly prickling, crackling warm.

"Decepticons! Retreat!" a huge, booming voice shouted. First Aid recognized that voice – that was Megatron. He hadn't really figured out any of the other Decepticons' names yet (really, he was going to have to if they were going to insist on having involved conversations about professionalism with him, it was just too awkward otherwise), but he knew Megatron. Megatron was hard to miss. Optimus Prime shouting his name was harder to miss. Putting the two together was easy enough, even if you were still rather confused about everything.

"…Never mind," said First Aid, "I suppose we'll all go back together."

"Sounds good to me," Ironhide said, "If one of you young people could lend me a hand, I seem to be missin' half a knee…"

"Sure thing," Groove said, and lifted himself off the ground into a crouch that didn't really hide him behind the rock with sturdy serenity. He took Ironhide's offered hand and lifted his arm about his smaller shoulders. "Right, I'm going to stand up now," he said, and did, slow and calm, like he was made for it.

(Which he was, more or less, but First Aid still found it impressive. There was something to be said for being good at being what you were meant to be.)

First Aid scrambled to his own feet, hurrying around Ironhide's side to give him more support.

Ironhide's weight on his shoulder was comfortable, solid and good if a little uneven – Ironhide would try to put more weight on his leg every other step or so and then realize he couldn't, at which point he'd have to lean more heavily on First Aid and, First Aid presumed, Groove. They skirted the rock outcropping together, Bumblebee just ahead of them, alert as ever.

They made it a ways over the ground, which was still smoking in places and did, indeed, have little bits of shattered glass – or maybe it was some other kind of mineral, but it looked like glass and it was sharp like glass and it crunched under First Aid's feet like glass (broken glass was nearly the first thing of the outside world that First Aid had met when he was brought online, broken glass that cracked under his feet and got in soft, permeable human skin and hurt – he would never forget broken glass, he was sure of it). Ironhide paused, and Groove and First Aid paused with him, easily in sync with each other. They might not know what Ironhide was going to do, but they knew what they would do, just simply.

"Well," Ironhide said, "We made a fine mess, didn't we?"

Bumblebee turned and took a few steps backward. He shrugged as he moved. "Could have been worse," he said, which was when the jamming field must have moved away, or lifted, whichever it was jamming fields did, because First Aid's radio broke its silence.

//Protectobots, report in,// Hot Spot said over the connection, his solid voice still crackling at the edges with the remnants of the jamming field.

//All clear on my end,// Streetwise answered//Our charges haven't got a scratch.//

//Carried them through like an egg through a hurricane?// First Aid asked happily, too glad to hear Streetwise and his news to think of protocol.

//More like a thunderstorm,// Streetwise said//But yes – no cracks!//

//It's an official channel right now, Streetwise, First Aid,// Hot Spot said briskly//It's plain ours later.//

//Sorry, Hot Spot,// First Aid said, repentant and embarrassed – it was a good thing it wasn't the main radio channel he'd slipped on//Forgot. All's clear for me.//

//All clear with me,// Groove said//I've got my eye on our doctor.//

//Meaning wha – Sorry, Hot Spot.//

//I'm in one piece - // Blades' voice rang through//But the Decepticons got em away /em .//

// em Don't /em go chasing them alone,// Streetwise said.

//Hey! I wasn't,!// Blades protested.

//Well, good.//

//I can see we need to work on our radio discipline,// Hot Spot said, but he was more amused than angry, and First Aid was simply glad to hear him, and the fond ruefulness in his voice.

//Sorry!// Blades said.

//That's for later,// Hot Spot said, brisk again. //Keep in contact.//

//Got it!// Groove said and added out loud, "That's us accounted for."

"With your team?" Bumblebee asked. First Aid realized with an internal leap of surprise that he must have been checking in too - with Jazz and Mirage, his own team. Of course Bumblebee had a team, and of course he was worried about them too. He didn't know why that hadn't occurred to him.

It worried him, a little, that he had been surprised.

"Yes," Groove started to say, but there was a rumble of anti-gravity thrusters behind them, and Bumblebee pulled his gun, stopping his backwards amble to settle into a steady stance and shoot at a target over Ironhide's head.

First Aid tried to go for his gun, but Ironhide's weight was against him, and Ironhide tried to go for em his /em gun, despite the fact that he couldn't really support his own weight, so he couldn't stand steadily, and while Groove and First Aid were scrambling to keep Ironhide from overbalancing, the pitch of the noise changed, and Bumblebee spun about on his heel, his aim still steady.

But after a moment – wherein First Aid and Groove were mostly absorbed in getting their own balances back - Bumblebee sighed heavily, brought his pistol down, and said, in deep disgust, "I need a bigger gun."

"You can always borrow mine," Ironhide told him.

"Thanks," Bumblebee said, tucking his own away, "But it's the recoil problem – One of these days I'll get Wheeljack to figure something out."

First Aid supposed that recoil could be a very big problem, when you were as small as Bumblebee, although from what he'd seen before he'd gotten Ironhide behind the ledge, it certainly didn't stop Cliffjumper. Of course, from what he'd seen, few things did. He did appear to deserve the name.

"Streetwise says he and Spike pulled the delegates through fine," Groove told Bumblebee, "Everything's all right that way."

"Good," Bumblebee said with a grin, "Thanks."

First Aid could feel something bright and warm sparking and jumping through his circuits in curious, rounded ways. He hadn't realized it was like Groove to think of passing that on, but he wasn't surprised. Groove remembered how people fit together, and helped them keep fitting together. It made First Aid happy to watch him.

They went forward. "I'm sorry about the Decepticon getting away," First Aid told Bumblebee.

"For the best, maybe," Ironhide said, "They're trouble walking."

"Or flying?" First Aid said, and was glad when Bumblebee laughed.

Ratchet was not amused to see the state of Ironhide's knee when they made it over to where he'd set up, in the lee of a major rise. "And what heroic idiocy were you trying?" he demanded, as Bumblebee melted away in the general direction of the delegates, and Groove abruptly vanished, making for freedom and the open highway, First Aid was sure.

This left First Aid standing in front of Ratchet with most of Ironhide's weight on his shoulder, but he didn't mind. Ratchet's temper was nothing to be afraid of. Besides, Ironhide was the one in trouble.

"Aw, Ratchet, I didn't do anything," Ironhide said, holding up a hand in a plea for mercy that probably wouldn't have been any more effective if he'd had two hands to spare for it. "I just got shot."

"He did try to stand on it," First Aid volunteered, because it was important information vital for appropriate treatment not, whatever Streetwise might say when in a less than serious frame of mind, snitching. "But not for long, because, well." Ironhide's plea had turned into desperate shushing motions. "Anyway, that was after I'd done initial repairs – I am a bit concerned, Ratchet, because he tried to tell me he didn't need pain relief for me to work on it."

Ratchet glared.

"Maybe it's a processor problem?" First Aid asked, not really much inclined to worry about the glare. After the conversation with the Decepticon, Ratchet's displeasure didn't seem particularly terrible, especially since it wasn't even aimed at him.

"Yes," Ratchet said, "A permanent one."

"Oh, I do hope not," First Aid said.

Ironhide made a small noise that might have been any number of things.

"Get him on the ground and I'll take over," Ratchet told First Aid, "He's still a bit wily for you."

"Wily?" asked First Aid, but he did as he was told, helping Ironhide ease himself down with the damaged leg straight out.

"Wily," Ratchet confirmed, "Experienced in being a terrible patient. I got to him too late, and he'd learned bad habits."

"Aw, doc!"

It seemed to First Aid that this would be a good point at which to absent himself, so that he did not become the crux of further dispute.

"You old reprobate," Ratchet said to Ironhide as First Aid turned away, "I bet you thought you could pull your tricks on the kid and get away with it."

"I wasn't thinkin' of getting away with anything, Ratchet," Ironhide protested, but First Aid was confident Ratchet wouldn't listen. The processor glitch would be properly corrected.

He strode on, heading for where he could see Hot Spot standing neatly next to Optimus Prime, his hands tucked behind his back. Hot Spot was listening, First Aid could tell from the tilt of his head and set of his shoulders, but he was far enough away that he really wasn't sure what they were talking about.

"First Aid!" Blades said, very close, and that was all the warning he got before his teammate lifted him up and spun him around, laughing. First Aid laughed too, and clung tightly to Blades' forearms, not letting go even after Blades set him back down on his feet. He wasn't sure he really had his footing back yet. "Did you see?" Blades demanded delightedly, "I went down, and I couldn't get back in the air, but that was all right, because I'd stopped Fireflight smashing into the cliff – though I need a better way to do that because now my rotors are all bent and it does hurt a bit – and anyway I could still fight! So I did."

"I'm sorry I missed it," First Aid said, and kept holding on to Blades. He wasn't afraid he was going to fall anymore, but Blades' excitement made him feel warm and gentle, and he didn't want to let go anymore. Not until he had to. "I was tending to Ironhide. Shall I look at your rotors?"

Blades huffed. "It just figures, you not seeing because Ironhide was hogging your attention that way."

"Well, he was unconscious at the time."

Blades let him go and stepped back, forcing him to give up their contact, frowning a little. "Sorry, you've got work. Not me, you'd better look at Fireflight, I think he got cut up when he flew into me."

"He flew _into_ you?"

"He didn't mean to, but geeze, jets just don't know how to stop, it's kind of pathetic," Blades said, with all the brisk superiority of a two day old helicopter who'd been built to turn on a size zero washer with no trouble.

First Aid shook his head. "Shameful. Imagine not being able to immediately make an effective brake at mach four. Where is he?"

"Behind you," Blades said, and reached forward again to turn him around. First Aid allowed him, because he hadn't wanted to let go in the first place. "See?" Blades said, leaning over his shoulder to point to a low rise where, sure enough, Fireflight sat (or, at least, First Aid presumed the jet on the ground was Fireflight - he didn't have them all sorted out yet), looking dazed. Silverbolt was crouched next to him, holding up fingers that Fireflight didn't seem to be paying much attention to.

"I see," First Aid said, and walked out of the shelter of Blades' gesture towards Fireflight and Silverbolt.

He had work to do, and he was glad to do it.

"Hey, Fireflight! How are you doing? Can you transform for me?"


End file.
